It was night time when
the little group of travellers emerged from their tunnel and stood high upon a
rocky outcrop in the cold mountain air. Above them in the vast blackness of the
universe the stars glittered and gleamed, and down below, in a dome of light as
bright as day, lay a long sprawling valley cradled between two mountain ranges.
Green meadows and forests, winding rivers and waterfalls stretched far into the
distance. Down either side of the valley ran a row of giant white pillars curving
up into the night sky and illuminating the whole bowl like an enormous football
stadium. The pillars, twelve pairs in all like a set of ribs, rose up and
arched over the valley like ribs vaulting the knave of a church. At the apex
where the tips of the pillars nearly met, clouds hung in tatters dripping
moisture down onto the valley below.
Beginning directly below
their feet and snaking away down the middle of the night-lit plains, was a series
of structures like a spinal chord, curving gently into the distance as it
bisected the valley.
And there, right in the
very centre of the valley stood the tallest, whitest building they had ever
seen. A colossal cathedral-like building with a central spire striking up into
the stars. It was a stupendous construction with many smaller spires and
flutes, windows and winding walkways all giving the impression of some kind of
celestial city. And it glowed with a terrible beauty, eerie and unnatural. Perfection
taken to such extremes left one feeling very uncomfortable, even more so when
it was contrasted by the green verdure of the valley surrounding it. One’s eye
was drawn to it and seemed to drag the body along. It was hard to resist such
purity.
The weary band of
travellers did not know whether to feel relief or unease at the sight
confronting them, but they all stood quietly among their own thoughts. Dutch
was impressed. She could immediately appreciate the amount of work that would
have gone into such a project. Angelo for once in his life wished he had a
camera; for a sight like this comes once in a billion lifetimes. He knew what
it felt like to be a gawping tourist now. Rose’s heart sank at the sight –
there was just no escaping that Cathedral and the memory of her son marrying
another woman. Somehow she felt trapped inside. It seemed to be following her
around: mocking her, and rubbing her nose in her pain. She just couldn’t seem
to escape her past. But the two people most deeply affected were Sweet Mary and
Righteous Alchemy. For Sweet Mary the stunning
sight was an instantaneous revelation so great that it changed her inside out. The
wondrous vision raised her soul to levels she had never known before, and she
floated as it were, above herself, light as a feather and free as a bird; one
moment an earthbound ugly duckling, the next a swan sailing on a silver stream.
What she understood she could not say in words for it came upon her in a flash;
she could only know it. She dropped Dutch’s hand and her body of its own accord
walked over to the edge of the cliff. No-one moved; but everyone watched,
knowing that something profound was happening to her.
She stood as if upon
some distant shore and looked at herself as if she was someone else,
dispassionately and incisively. She was twenty five years old, and all her life
she had been what others had wanted her to be. She had no idea until now that
she could be anyone other than who she was. Even this ‘adventure’, from the
time she was arrested to now, she seemed to regard as a temporary deviation
from the norm…to which she would soon return and be herself again - a
Null-whore. But now it was beginning to dawn on her that things might not be able
to go back; things had changed. She had changed…was changing. She felt her old solidified
self slide off her back like a snake shedding its skin. She knew without a
doubt she was no longer just a powerless possession or puppet, but that she was
someone in charge of her own making. The thought exhilarated and frightened her
at the same time, for she felt her new application was limitless and unknown. She
was yet to discover what her real likes and desires were; what her real needs
and passions were. What she would become she didn’t know. Whether it was to be something
wonderful or terrible, she would have to find out. She knew only that she was
new and unknown, and that she must patiently wait and watch out for her new
self.
Then, for a moment she
got scared; like all intrepid explorers, the unknown swamped her and she tried
to flee back to her old habitual safe self. She turned from the edge of the
precipice and ran back to Dutch, clinging to her hand as if Dutch was the
keeper of normality and looked longingly at her for reassurance. But although
Dutch smiled back at her she didn’t experience that comforting feeling she used
to get. The smile didn’t reach her. She felt empty and alone. Something in her
had snapped and severed her from herself and her old life. She knew at that
moment that there was no going back and that she was going to have to learn to
manage her anxiety by herself. She couldn’t rely on other people anymore for
her safety and well being. She was going to have to learn to control her fear
so as not to be at the mercy of others or her null-wave transmitter anymore.
Slowly she let Dutch’s
hand drop and stood her own ground. She stared at the landscape ahead. This was
where she was going to become a new person - not the fluffy headed dumb blonde
bimbo she was used to playing. At that thought she became excited again. What
sort of person would she become? This was to be her promised land, for better
or for worse, come what may; this was where she would learn to walk, learn to
pick herself up when she fell, where she would learn to love and hate – not
just acquiesce to her fate. She felt like a new slate upon which this land
would write its lesson; carve its image on her virgin soul.
Slowly the valley came back
into focus and all the overwhelming feelings and thoughts receded into the
background into a more manageable form. She turned and looked at the others as
if she’d never seen them before: Dutch’s concerned stare, Angelo’s half smile with
his grizzled beard and sunburnt face, Rose’s large staring eyes. She would get
to know them all too; make time for them and not be so consumed with herself
and her own problems.
Everyone was looking at
her shiny face, except for Righteous, who stood monolithically rooted to the
spot staring into the valley. He gazed upon something very different. No new
birth of the soul for him; no epiphany heralding the coming of spiritual growth
and great opportunities. This was no moment on the road to Damascus
This was the source of
his darkness; this was where his future ended, where everything stopped. Defeat
stared him in the face. This was where all his good work and all his prescience
came to naught, all his service to mankind…this extravagant gift of blindness,
his wisdom, all like so much dust to be blown away in the wind, unnoticed and unimportant
in the great scheme of things. In the end he had been of no use to mankind at
all; his finest efforts, the sacrifices and the solitude, the self-restraint
and the ceaseless servitude…all for nothing. There had been no friends to
distract him from his dedication to his divine duty, no celebrations, no
banquets, no laughter, no tears, no sympathy, no comfort, no love. He had
starved his soul to near death in the belief that his contribution was vital,
that his efforts were necessary for the survival of humankind.
He could hear someone
laughing at him, an ancient voice, from an ancient land, heard by many before
him. How high can hubris go before it falls? How deluded the self-appointed
redeemer; how useless the task – to presume that God had need of him, that God
couldn’t have done it without him. The laughter took on a familiar tone. He
remembered his father laughing at him after falling over a chair in his blindness;
then again when he failed to find the door and walked into the wall.
“If you ain’t the
stupidest thing I ever saw.” And the laughter. Always the laughter, and the
mocking; and now again one final time at his hour of comprehension.
“If you ain’t the most
useless thing I ever saw.”
All his Herculean
efforts had all been for this, just to make the laughter stop – to prove
himself worthy to a spiteful, vindictive, drunken old sot who had sold him to a
Slaver for a bottle of rum when he was only five years old. All his talents had
grown from this, his prescience and his second sight. All along he had only
been trying to please his father - and he had been doomed to fail from the
beginning.
In the end there was
only him and his sad drunken father. This last thought was what finally broke
his great heart and he sagged to his knees, all his courage deserting him. It
was all for nothing. No one really cared.
Who could bear such a
thought? Who could bear such a lonely thought? For all we have is this little
pretence...that we are necessary to someone.
“Do you think this is a
hallucination?” asked Rose.
“At this point I don’t
even know if that matters,” said Angelo. “It’s there. As long as there’s food
and water, that’s all I’m worried about.”
“And I can have a bath,”
said Sweet Mary looking longingly at the rivers that flowed through it.
Righteous Alchemy rose
stoically to his feet and silently girded his loins for his final battle, the
one he knew he was going to lose. When it would come he did not know….but it wouldn’t
be long. In the meantime he still had work to do; to finish what he started and
deliver this little band of humans safely to their destination.
